


The Blood of the Covenant

by mormolyce



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, can you tell this is about family dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 05:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17197226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mormolyce/pseuds/mormolyce
Summary: Hilda is afraid of returning to America. She doesn’t like the sound of the Church, she doesn’t like the sound of her siblings. After over a decade apart, what do they have in common besides their surname?





	The Blood of the Covenant

Their parents split the year Hilda is born. Their mother takes her and returns to England; Edward and Zelda stay in America.

Hilda likes her life and the woman that raises her. They live in a tall terraced house in London. Their neighbours are lawyers and doctors, and every Sunday they defy the Church of our Unholy Father and offer alms to the poor alongside the protestants. Her mother is a nurse, then a midwife, then a surgeon, a near impossible feat for a woman of the time.

Hilda grows up surrounded by thick pea-soup fog and factories that spit out endless black into a permanently overcast sky. She grows up with poorhouses and Empire, too many biscuits and a boundless flow of stolen tea. She knows that she is blessed, she knows that she is lucky. She is acutely aware of those that have not.

Zelda is not sad when Hilda leaves. She already detests the baby that ripped apart their family and is grateful to see the back of her. Her and Edward grow close, so close that their father despises Edward for his femininity. He howls at them, screams at his son to stay away from her and to make real friends. He sends Edward to boarding school a full two-years early. Only then is Zelda sad.

She scours the village of Greendale, desperate for friendship, family, anything to fill the void. Their father is the town’s only undertaker; people are as afraid to make him their friend as they are to make him their enemy. She grows up surrounded by trees and coffins, hills steeped in mist and corners of the world that are always too dark to see. The Dunwich Horror materialises every day in her backyard. Zelda collects photos of theatre stars, newspaper clippings of life in the city. Sometimes she goes to Riverdale – they have a cabaret every Thursday night. She never goes any further.

\---

Hilda is afraid of returning to America. She doesn’t like the sound of the Church, she doesn’t like the sound of her siblings. After over a decade apart, what do they have in common besides their surname? Her mother smooths her hair, helps her create a carrycase for her spiders, kisses her on the nose and tells her everything will be alright. She walks Hilda onto the boat and hugs her as they wave farewell to England.

The ocean liner from Plymouth wheezes its way across the Atlantic.

Her two older siblings are waiting when Hilda arrives. Edward shakes her hand then hugs their mother; Zelda sneers and says nothing. Hilda struggles with the formalities, nods her head uncertainly as the Church of Night is explained to her. Its intensity is unlike anything she experienced at the Church of our Unholy Father. Hilda is deathly afraid. Their mother purses her lips as if she knows this, but leaves Hilda there anyway. The Academy of Unseen Arts provides the best education a young witch could have, she reiterates, over and over. Hilda clutches her spiders close.

The harrowing is brutal. Her spiders die. Zelda laughs. Several times Edward is the only thing that stops her from stealing Hilda’s last breath.

Many weeks later Hilda confronts her sister, walks up to Zelda in the middle of the forest and begs her for an answer. When Zelda sneers and turns to leave Hilda wraps a silk scarf around her neck, threatening to pull if Zelda screams. She’s bigger and stronger and Zelda knows it. It doesn’t matter that Hilda starts crying; it only makes her adrenalin more potent.

“Why are you doing this?” she pleads into Zelda’s ear, “What have I ever done to you?”

“You ruined everything.”

Hilda steps back, shaking, and Zelda slaps her as hard as she can.

All the ills of the world can be attributed to Hilda. She got their mother and Zelda a miserable undertaker; she got the city and Zelda a village with too much dirt; she got the church that cared and Zelda a coven that controlled. She pushes Hilda to the ground as she speaks, kicks her in the gut over and over. Edward finds them only minutes later and has to pull Zelda away like a rabid dog. She keeps howling and kicking and screaming until Edward throws her down and hits her across the face.

And then both sisters are on the ground, crying and bruised and staring at their older brother in surprise. Edward sticks out his arms and commands them to stop; he is the man of the family and they must do as he demands. Zelda is shocked at his words – since when did her big brother believe that nonsense?

\---

Edward gets worse. He does not bully the way Zelda used to, but makes it clear that bullying will be the reward for disobedience. In a strange way it brings the sisters closer together, both now rapt by their brother’s apparent downfall. Or his ascent, depending on who you asked. Zelda is less vicious. She derides her friends when they mock Hilda, and flays Johnny Hollow raw for dumping his soup in Hilda’s hair during an ill-thought out prank. She is never kind, but makes it clear that no one else has the right to be cruel.

Hilda starts to realise that Zelda has no ounce of tenderness in her, even when she tries. She reflects on Zelda’s attempts to be nice and chuckles to herself, and a small part of her pities Zelda for being so stunted. In pitying her, Hilda feels power. The spiders creep back, making cobwebs under Hilda’s bed and spying on people when she is too big to do so herself.

When Edward leaves the Academy, the sisters feel a wave of relief. Their mother is not at the graduation. Only days later, their father takes Edward on a nondescript ‘summer trip’. Zelda and Hilda are left alone over the holidays, kicking up dust in an empty house full of death. Zelda teaches Hilda the forest, the earth, the thinning veils between the worlds. Hilda tries to teach Zelda warmth, hot tea and good food, but Zelda does not want to learn.

Their father comes back just before the school year begins again and Edward is not with him. They never find out where he went.

\---

He reappears at Zelda’s graduation; their father does not. Edward and Hilda huddle together at the back of the crowd, misshapen and mismatched. Zelda does not seem surprised by their father’s absence. In her heart neither is Hilda: he had so often told her how she was more sensible than her foppish big sister, how she was more helpful, more hardworking, more dedicated than the girl who constantly dreamt of theatre and flamboyance. Hilda knows that Zelda was only tolerated.

Zelda stays during the summer but she too disappears once Hilda is back at school. Hilda likes to imagine she fled to New York, Paris, or Berlin, somewhere she could pursue the life that Greendale never offered.

Walking the halls of the Academy without waiting for the faint click-clack of Zelda’s high-heels is a relief. Hilda’s grades sky rocket. When she graduates, she’s valedictorian, and for once all the Spellman’s are gathered in one place. Their mother is overcome with glee, their father and Edward nod in quiet approval. Zelda taps the end of her cigarette and the ash falls on Hilda’s new shoes.

Hilda returns to England.

\---

The youngest Spellman throws herself into life the moment her ship lands in Brighton. She delivers babies, cures the incurable, helps their mother on rescue missions to far flung countries she could only dream of. But it no longer makes her happy. The horrors of empire are etched into her brain and her morality strains against the knowledge like a ship in a storm. She calls on the powers of darkness – for whatever their form they exist in all places – to liberate the people her country seeks to annihilate. The forces of darkness do not listen.

When unrest explodes in Europe, Hilda thinks she can help. She enlists as soon as she’s able, and is exposed to a fresh wave of mustard-coloured evils. After the first war ends, she stays in Germany, supporting the troops left behind to guard Weimar. She is introduced to Ambrose, a distant relative and outlandish artist. His faith is fleeting and his words are sharp, but he is kind and treats Hilda with courtesy.

The second war is different. She stays in London and takes on ridiculous personas, helps the hospitals and poorhouses struggling to cope with the influx of mangled men. There is less excitement, but equally less hardship and a lot less blood, and Hilda has grown so tired of watching people die. When that war ends, she is content with her lot. She returns to midwifery and is happy.  

But then she receives a message from Zelda. Their father has died. Zelda will not say why and their mother will not go to the funeral.

She travels to Greendale alone.

\---

Edward is changed; evolved is a better description. He’s taken fresh vows and is a priest at the Church of Night. Zelda is the same but older. Her lips are painted red and her hair is curled. She smokes through a cigarette holder she purchased in Paris. Edward conducts the service and they bury their father in the cold earth near the mines. Their brother does not stay to grieve.

Hilda promises herself she will only remain for a week, but Zelda is hollow in a way she has never seen before. She traipses through the empty house in either overwrought hysterics or deathly silence. Hilda watches in horror as the bleak damp air of Greendale’s sin seeps into her sister’s bones and rots her from the inside out.

Desperately Hilda calls their mother, but she does not care about Zelda’s agony. She speaks with resentment, as if Zelda _chose_ to stay with their father. Maybe she did, thinks Hilda, but that is not an excuse. She tries everyone she can think of: the Church of Night do not care; the Church of our Unholy Father are too far away; all traceable family members are indifferent to Zelda’s suffering.

After two weeks Hilda moves into Zelda’s bedroom, just to be sure.

A few nights later she wakes early and Zelda is not there. Hilda runs to the river, knowing full well her sister’s flair for dramatics. She hauls her out of the ice and forces life back into her body, and together they stagger to the mortuary.

Zelda never explains why their father’s death affected her so. Perhaps it was not so much his death, but that which came after. Hilda tells her sister she can come with her to London, but Zelda will not hear of it. She went there once, in between the wars. Their mother spat on her and Zelda vowed to never return. They run out of money; Zelda still refuses to travel. Hilda rolls up her sleeves and stays where she is needed.

\---

Spellman Mortuary starts taking bodies again. Hilda’s compassion combined with Zelda’s detachment makes them a surprisingly efficient team.

Zelda is an even better teacher than before. She shows her little sister how to hex and curse, how to grasp the threads that bind the universe. She shows her how to pick clean the minds of others and drag up their deepest fears. Hilda takes to the lessons like a duck to water and it frightens her; she was not raised to be cruel. Occasionally Hilda will try to teach Zelda too, something of tenderness and mercy, but her big sister is still too stubborn to learn. Hilda does not move out of Zelda’s room.

And then they discover Edward’s wife. His new, mortal wife. Zelda is horrified and Hilda is undeniably shaken, but they are constantly reassured that it is all part of the Dark Lord’s plan. After all, Edward is a High Priest.

He brings Diana to the house one day by means of formal introduction. His second-in-command is there too, a flamboyant ex-thespian called Faustus, serving simultaneously as decoration and a threat of violence in case the sisters voice too harsh a displeasure. Hilda smirks when he introduces himself - who would name their child after such a ridiculous legend? Zelda nods graciously and bends her knee to the priest with fake nails.

Two months later they learn Diana is with child. She stays in Greendale the entire year. Only Hilda attends the birth.

\---

And then the crash happens; a week later Ambrose arrives. No one explains anything and it’s only through Zelda's emphatic faith that they accept him into their home without question. They are given the child days later. Hilda tries to contact their mother, but when she learns of Edward’s mortal wife she hangs up the phone. By the end of the week Sabrina’s paternal grandmother has vanished off the face of the earth.

In the span of less than a month the sisters’ lives are spewed onto the ground, and they struggle to pick up the pieces. They fight and scream every day; Ambrose spends most of his time hiding in the attic with the baby. In a fit of particularly momentous rage Zelda strikes Hilda down and kills her. She rushes to Ambrose moments later, kneeling desperately at his feet, begging him to save her little sister.

Ambrose coolly informs her of Abel’s soil and Zelda drags Hilda’s body to the fresh-dug grave with a strength she shouldn’t rightly possess. When Hilda claws out of the ground Zelda nearly collapses with relief, but acts nonchalant when her little sister staggers up the porch, covered in blood and dirt. Ambrose rushes to her aid and curses Zelda with mortal words. Zelda knows then and there that she has lost yet another family member to Hilda’s charms. That night she cries in remorse; only the baby sees her tears.

\---

Sabrina grows. She is tempestuous and jubilant all at the same time. Zelda teaches her magic; Hilda teaches her kindness. Ambrose teaches her wit, and in the end that serves her best, in both the mortal and the witching world.

Zelda and Hilda still fight. Now Zelda knows the secret of Cain's pit she strikes Hilda down with alarming intensity. Ambrose continues to admonish her for it and rushes to Hilda’s aid like a loyal dog. Sabrina learns about the killing when she’s a teenager. It only makes her hug Hilda harder, only makes her more grateful for the aunt who tucks her in at night even though she’s fully capable of doing it herself.

Zelda loves Sabrina with her entire heart, but words of affection never come. Sometimes something kind seeps out, dripping like water from a rusty faucet, but there is nothing meaningful, nothing consistent. Hilda gushes so much love Sabrina could practically bathe in it. Zelda is both repulsed and bitterly envious.

\---

Sabrina turns sixteen; the sisters no longer have time to battle each other.


End file.
